rally as barren as Helvellyn or Penmanmaur. The beauty and cultivation of the Elysian plains, which extend between the Alps and the Apennines, are too well known to be either praised or described, and he who has traversed them will not be surprized that a Greek Emperor, (Michael Paleologus,) should have supposed them in his admiration, to be the purlieus of the terrestrial paradise. But Italian industry is not confined to these regions of fertility. From Bologna to Loretto, a distance of one hundred and fifty miles, it has covered the coast of the Adriatic with rich harvests, and shaded the brows of the Apennines with verdure and foliage. It also displays its labours to the best advantage, and every where shews in fences, canals to water the fields,* plantations, &c. a neatness of tillage seldom witnessed and never surpassed even in the best cultivated countries. And not these regions only, but the defiles of Seravalle; the lovely vales of the Arno and of the Clitumnus, of Terni and of Reate; the skirts of Vesuvius so often ravaged and so often restored to cultivation; the orchards that blow on the steeps of Vallombrosa, and wave on the summits of Monte Sumano: Italy, all Italy, blooming as the garden of God, from the Adriatic to the Tuscan, from the Alps to the Ionian Sea, is a * This practice of irrigation, so very common both in ancient and modern Italy, and contributing so very materially to the progress of vegetation, is turned into a beautiful scene by Virgil. Et cum exustus ager morientibus æstuat herbis, Georgic, lib. 1. proof and a monument of the industry and the intelligence of its inhabitants. "But the Italians sleep in the middle of the day, and lie stretched out under the porticoes of the churches, or under the shade of the vine, when they ought to be working; therefore they are a lazy, sluggish race." The Italians, like the Sicilians and Greeks, follow the example of their ancestors in this respect, and only obey the call of nature, in reposing during the sultry hours, when labour is dangerous and the heat is intolerable. To compensate for this suspension, they begin their labours with the dawn, and prolong them till the close of evening; so that the Italian sleeps less and labours more in the four-and-twenty hours, than the English, peasant. The Italians seem always to have been early risers, as appears from many passages in Cicero's and Pliny's letters; and a beautiful picture of domestic life drawn by Virgil, will on this occasion recur to the recollection of the reader*. In all warm climates, as the cool of the evening invites to amusement, so the freshness of the morning seems to call to labour and exertion; and travellers * Inde, ubi prima quies medio jam noctis abactæ Noctem addens operi, famulasque ad lumina longo En. lib. vIII. 407. would consult both their health and their pleasure, if they would obey this call and devote the sultry part of the day to rest, and the cool morning hours to curiosity and application. But, say the enemies of Italy, and this indeed is the strongest argument they produce, is not beggary a proof of indolence, and in what country is a traveller so beset with beggars as in Italy: he is pursued in the streets, tormented at church, and besieged by them at home. Their importunities are encouraged by charity and provoked by refusal; in short, wherever you go, you are followed and teized by a crowd of impudent and oftentimes sturdy vagrants. This statement, though highly coloured, is not exaggerated; at least, if confined to the southern provinces. In extenuation, I must observe, that if the example of the ancients, and I pretend not to make the modern Italians more perfect than their ancestors, can be admitted as an excuse, the moderns may plead it in their favour. Juvenal alone, not to load the page with useless quotations, furnishes a sufficient proof of the numbers of mendicants that crowded Rome in his time, in the following lines, which point out their stations, their gestures, and their perseverance. Cæcus adulator, dirusque a ponte satelles Sat. IV. But without relying upon antiquity for an answer to this reproach, the reader must be informed, that vagrants as numerous and as troublesome may be seen in France, in Spain, in Portugal, in some parts of Germany, and let me add, in Scot land and in Ireland; so that if beggary be a proof of idleness, the inhabitants of all these countries must submit to the imputation. But, to remove a charge so insulting to the largest and most civilized portion of the inhabitants of Europe, we need but to remember, that in all these countries there is no legal provision for the poor, and that the needy and the distressed, instead of demanding relief from the parish, are obliged to ask alms of the public. Perhaps, if it were possible to calculate the number of those who live upon charity in Italy and in England, we should find no great reason to triumph in the difference. Beggary, without doubt, is sometimes the effect of individual, but cannot in justice be considered as a proof of national, idleness, since even amongst us, where ample provision is supposed to be made for all cases of distress, and where mendicancy is so strictly prohibited, yet objects in real or pretended misery so often meet the eye, and in spite of law and police, infest our public places. As for the nakedness of children in Italy, the want of furniture in houses, of glass in the windows, and many other external marks of misery, every traveller knows how fallacious are such appearances, which are occasioned, not by the distress of the people, but by the mildness and the serenity of the climate. In fact, to admit as much air as possible is the object in all southern countries; and in Italy at present, as well as anciently, the people of all classes delight in living constantly in the open air; a custom as salubrious as it is pleasant in such a genial temperature as generally prevails beyond the Alps. Hence the scenes of festive enjoyment and of private indulgence are generally represented as taking place in the open air, as in the Georgics. Ipse dies agitat festos fususque per herbam And in Horace, Cur non sub alta vel platano vel hac Hence Cicero, as Plato before him, represents most of his dialogues as taking place in some rural scene, as the second De Legibus in an island formed by the Fibrenus; the first, De Oratore, under a plane tree, &c. all scenes as favourable to the activity of the mind, as they are conducive to the health of the body. After all, a foreigner who has visited some of the great manufacturing towns, and traversed the northern and western parts of the United Kingdom, may ask with surprise what right we have to reproach other nations with their poverty and misery, when under our own eyes, are exhibited instances of nakedness, filth, and distress, exceeding all that has hitherto been related of Italy, of France, or of any country under heaven, excepting perhaps some of the Prussian territories. Quam in nos legem sancimus iniquam ! "The Italians are We shall now proceed to another charge. vindictive and cruel, and too much in the habits of sacrificing human life to vengeance and passion." It would almost be a pity to refute this charge, the supposed certainty of which has furnished our late novellists, particularly those of the fair sex, with so much and such excellent matter for description; dungeons and friars, daggers and assassins, carcases and spectres. But, veteres avias tibi de pulmone revello. We must leave these |